2024 marked a turning point for our FreshScores commissions. For the first time in our history, we commissioned not only some of the most exciting roots musicians to live score film, but we also commissioned some of the most exciting filmmakers to create new short films themselves. These films included the following productions:

Billy Luther, writer for the hit series Dark Winds and director of the critically-acclaimed, Taika Waititi produced feature Frybread Face and Me, shared a new project with original music performed by multi-instrumentalist, composer, and 2021 Sundance Composers Lab Fellow, Olivia Simone Komahcheet.

Kirsten Johnson, celebrated documentary filmmaker behind Netflix’s Dick Johnson Is Dead and multiple award winning Cameraperson, and cinematographer of the Academy Award-winning film Citizenfour, produced a brand new film with live score music from acclaimed roots artist and FreshGrass performer, Adia Victoria.

Mariano Dongo, a filmmaker from Lima, Peru whose work has been shown at Tribeca Film Festival, New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam and Palm Springs ShortFest among others, presented a short film with original music by Forrest Gray, whose composing credits include Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, Netflix’s Bridgerton and Dear White People, and Steven Soderbergh’s 2010 documentary And Everything Is Going Fine.

And finally, FreshGrass 2023 performer Sierra Ferrell and artist Ozzie Juarez star in multidisciplinary filmmaker Zinzi Gugu Johnson new project, with an original score by GRAMMY Award-winning cellist and composer Andrew Yee.